Dave & the Dragon
by CyborgGarfield
Summary: Dave Lister's destiny comes screaming in like a squadron of supralightspeed fighters! AGAIN! That's about all I can say without giving too much of the story away, although the title pretty much does that anyway. Oh well, what the smeg!
1. Chapter 1

**CyborgGarfield's Red Dwarf Fan Fiction #1:**

**Dave and the Dragon.**

**Three Million years from Earth, the mining ship Red Dwarf.**

**It's crew:**

**Dave Lister – The last human being alive.**

**Arnold Rimmer – A hologram of his dead bunk mate.**

**An android named Kryten that they picked up in deep space and:**

**A creature who evolved from the ship's cat.**

**Message ends…**

**Additional:**

**Being so far away from Earth isn't so bad when you realise that you're three million years away from ever being tempted to eat another chicken nugget.**

Chapter 1:

Dave Lister, the last human being alive in the entire universe (well, in this particular dimension, anyway), sat on his dead roommate Arnold Rimmer's superfluous bunk in a pair of grotty ship-issue shorts and a curry stained London Jets Zero-G Football Team t-shirt while he chewed the nail off the large toe of his left foot. It was the last toe on today's menu, having just gnawed on the other nine and in his absolute delight he had only made three of them bleed.

"Yes! A new world record! Holly! Holly, are you there?"

Holly is Red Dwarf's AI computer and he has an IQ of 6000. "An IQ of 6000 isn't really a lot" he used to say. "It's the same IQ as 12,000 Hillary Duff fans."

The black vid screen suddenly came on and the image of the greatest lover in the history of the universe appeared in all his glory. "I hope this is important, Dave. I was in the middle of a paradigm changing moment."

"It's not another smeggin' Holly Hop Drive is it?"

"Oh dear, I thought you'd forgotten all about that" said Holly, suddenly going all red in his cheeks.

"Holl, it's really hard to forget meeting a smegging female version of yourself; especially when you've slept with her! Short of another mind enema, I doubt if that particular un-wanted memory will ever leave me."

"Sorry about that, but what was it you wanted, Dave?"

Lister was about to say when he noticed something strange about Holly. Well, something stranger. "Umm… yea, before I tell you; why are you wearing a monocle?"

"Am I?"

"Yea, man you are. Why?"

"Sorry, I thought I took it off. It's so I can read properly, I've got a lazy eye."

"You're a computer! How can you have a lazy eye?"

The monocle disappeared and Holly looked up in deep thought before answering.

"I don't know. Maybe I've got a corrupted file or something."

"I think it might be more than just one smegged-up file, Holly. Man, sometimes I think you're a few Apostles short of an upper room."

"That's an insult that is. I'll have you know I'm a tenth generation AI with an IQ of…."

"6000, yea I know. So what was it you were working on anyway, Holly?"

"Err… …Umm… …it's a work in progress and if I told you I'd have to kill you. Now why did you call me?"

"Oh, yea, I just wanted to tell you…" Dave thought about it for a second then decided not to tell Holly about his record as it only just hit him that it was a pretty stupid thing to get excited about. Especially in the light of his Holly Hop memory.

'Never mind, it wasn't really important. Do you know where the others are?"

Holly rolled his eyes up into the back of his head. "At the moment the Cat's in the drive room looking for mice, Rimmer is…"

"He's looking for mice in the drive room?"

"Yes."

"That smeggin' cat is mental. If I've told him once, I've told him a billion times! There are no smeggin' mice, rats, hamsters or other rodents on the ship!" A thought entered Lister's head and an evil smiled worked its way across his face. "That is, of course, with the huge exception of Rimmer!"

Holly smiled with his usual 'I get it but its not funny' grimace. "Anyway, Rimmer is in the kitchen with one of the skutters making another pointless attempt at cooking and…"

"You're kiddin'? Rimmer's trying to cook again? Smeg! I'm only just now beginning to get my taste buds working again after that so-called Manchurian Chicken he made three weeks ago. You remember, the one everyone thought was couscous."

"Dave, you haven't had working taste buds since you ate that volcano-hot beef vindaloo takeaway you ordered on Earth before you're first tour on Red Dwarf!"

"That was three million years ago, Holly" Lister said sarcastically and smiled that chipmunk smile of his.

Holly's smile disappeared and he said "and Kryten is on downtime."

"Well, I can't blame him really; forty-eight hours straight of Rimmer's Hammond Organ Owner's Club meetings on tape would drain anyone's smeggin' batteries."

"So was there anything else, Dave? Shall I get a skutter to get you some bandaids?"

Dave looked up with a start and looked at Holly with puzzled look on his face. "How do you know I need bandaids, Holly? Here! Were you watching me while…?"

"No, Dave! Of course I wasn't." Holly smiled his award winning smile and said "I videoed your culinary madness and caught up with it while we were talking."

The screen went blank just before Lister could hit Holly with a barrage of swearing so he sat back on his bunk and just sighed. "I'm bored, again!"

Dave drifted off to sleep with visions of Christine Kochanski in a white dress, riding a horse down a drained and reclaimed beach on Fiji. As he slept and his dream became X rated he was suddenly awoken by an extremely loud alarm and Holly shouting "Emergency! There's an emergency going on… …It's still going on!"

Lister sat bolt upright and yelled "what is it Holly?"

"It's an emergency, Dave!"

"Yea, Holl, I get that bit! But what IS the emergency?"

Holly appeared on the screen in his pyjamas and night cap. His eyes were darting from left to right repeatedly like he was trying to look at 10 different things at the same time. "We're caught in a tractor beam, Dave. Our course took us pretty close to a massive moon orbiting a gas giant and then 'wham!' We're being pulled towards the moon like a flounder with a hook in its mouth!"

Lister jumped off the top bunk and started putting on his mostly unwashed clothes, testing, as usual, the condition of his socks and whether they actually bent. "Holly, wake Kryten and tell the other two to meet me in the drive room, Holly, just a quick question, you are actually trying to get us free from this beam thing, aren't you?"

"Gee, let me see! Wow, I didn't think of that, getting us free of the beam. Good idea! Gordon Bennett, Dave; I may have computer senility but I'm not so bad that I don't know to try and escape! Now, leave me alone and let me 'try' some more" he said, mumbling something about wishing he had never let Lister out of stasis when the radiation levels had become safe after Red Dwarf's 'Drive Plate' incident.

Pulling on his cap, Dave Lister moved up and down the corridors and ladders of the humongous mining ship, Red Dwarf, not knowing that he was running towards his destiny. Again!

Dave ran into the drive room at the same time as Rimmer, but 'Old Iron Balls' came in from a different door.

"Lister, what the smegging smeg is going on?"

Dave stopped and looked at the most annoying person he had ever met then his face displayed that same puzzled look that appeared pretty regularly. "Rimmer, I didn't know holograms could sweat?"

"What?" Rimmer said, running around in panic like a chicken without a head.

"You're sweating, man! I didn't know holograms could sweat."

Rimmer stopped running around and began looking for a space to hide. He yelled 'well I didn't know holograms could soil themselves either but I've just disproved that theory!"

Lister turned up his nose and backed up and foot or two. "I really didn't need to know that, smeg for brains!"

It was then they both noticed the cat, curled up in a sort of a ball on top of the navicom.

"Cat?" Dave said, amazed at his friend's ability to sleep during disasters. "What are you doin' man?"

"Don't you hear that smeggin' alarm, you stupid moggy" Rimmer said with his usual sarcasm.

"Yea, of course I do grease-stain, but I'm having my midnight between supper and pre-breakfast nap!"

"We're being pulled into a moon by a smeggin' beam of some sort" Dave said, disturbed by the cat's lack of caring.

"That's no reason to disturb my sleep. Turn that alarm thing off!"

Lister and Rimmer looked at each other and rolled their eyes. "Holly" Dave said. "We know there's an emergency, and look, Kryten's here now, so can you please turn off the alarm?"

"OK Dave."

The annoying klaxon horn stopped bleating and Kryten was still screwing his head back on as he entered the drive room. "Mr Lister, Sir! What's happening?"

"We're being pulled into a moon by some sort of tractor beam, Kryters. Holly, any luck getting away from it?"

"Well, if you call Red Dwarf being pulled down a very large and very deep crater and seconds from hitting the bottom 'getting away', then yes! We are getting away!"

Rimmer was still panicky but had enough sense of reality to say "Holly, you're a complete and utter smeg-head, do you know that?"

Holly just stuck out his tongue and blew Rimmer a raspberry.

"So Holly, how long before we…" was all Lister got out before they felt Red Dwarf touch bottom, firmly and controlled.

"About now, Dave" said Holly.

Dave put his head in his hands and sighed before asking "what are the scanners picking up, Holl?"

"We're on a moon about the size of earth. I detect no life signs down this crater nor did I detect any on the surface"

"What about this smeggin' tractor beam, Holly; can you tell us were it came from?"

"I can tell you that the moon is mostly common old iron with some other insignificant minerals all mixed in and that's about it!"

"No energy signatures, no buildings?"

"Nope, just rock!"

Rimmer was in the process of removing himself from his less-than-realistic hiding place behind a swivel chair when he said "a lot of smegging good you are, you expensive excuse for a photocopier!"

Holly ignored him but Lister asked "so there's nothing here? How did we get here then?"

"That's a good question, Dave; let me know when you find out. Oh, you might try looking in the cave."

"What cave?" Lister asked.

"The one at the bottom of the crater, Dave; I don't know how deep it goes because my scanners can't penetrate the wall of the crater."

"Right, Kryten, get me and the cat space suits. We'll go and find out."

"You heard him Krytie, they'll go outside into a dark, foreboding crater and we'll stay here and watch."

"Actually, Arnold; I want us all to go. Go and get your hard-light hologram light bee."

"But you need someone here, to watch your back and…"

"The last thing I want when I'm going into a smeggin' cave is for you to be watching my back! We're all going and that's it."

"Actually, Dave, you won't need your space suits" said Holly.

"He's lost the plot" Rimmer said. "He thinks he's one of your solid hallucinations!"

Dave ignored Rimmer and asked "Holly, why don't we need space suits?"

'Because there's a breathable atmosphere down here and the outside temperature is the same as in the ship."

"And you don't know why?"

"Haven't a clue."

"So much for an IQ of 6000" Rimmer remarked.

Lister shook the Cat and told him to wake up. He protested and moaned but Dave grabbed him by his ear and dragged him. "Ok, ok! I'm coming!"

Dave let him go and they made their way down to the bowels of the ship.

They stopped at the armoury along the way and Dave said "Let's take bazookoids just in case. Kryten here you go."

"Do you think these are really necessary Mr Lister sir?" said Kryten, looking at his firearm like it had the plague.

"I've got just three words for you Kryten: Psychotic Android Replacement!"

"Yes sir, I remember him only too well, but…"

"Does the word Polymorph ring a bell?"

'Very well sir, I get your point."

"Cheers Kryten, anyway, didn't we modify your pacifist chip so you can be at least some smeggin' use in a stoush?"

"Yes sir, but I still don't like these bazookoid things; they are very loud and…"

"Just aim and shoot Kryten, that's all I ask, ok?"

Kryten nodded nervously as Rimmer turned up in his hard-light form. Lister gave him and the Cat their weapons and they made their way to one of the airlocks located at the bottom of Red Dwarf.

Holly wasn't imagining things when he said that there was a breathable, comfortable atmosphere in the crater; nor was he seeing things when he mentioned the cave. Red Dwarf's external lighting made it possible to see the entrance which was about the width and height of a London double-decker bus.

"Look" said Rimmer in his usual whinny voice. "There's the cave."

"We didn't bring flashlights" said the cat, holding his bazookoid over his shoulder with one hand and trying to check himself out with a mirror he was holding in the other. "I won't be able to see myself in there, let's go back!"

"No need, sirs" said Kryten. "I can use one of my eyes as a torch" as his left eye suddenly spewed forth a very bright beam, illuminating the depths of the cave.

"Right Dwarfers, let's go and see what's down there" said Lister.

6


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

The gallant, err… reluctant explorers hadn't gone more than 100 feet into the cave when Rimmer yelled "just wait one smegging minute!"

"What? What is it Rimmer? What have you…?" yelled back Lister, jumping around with his bazookoid aimed randomly and erratically.  
"Kryten, turn around and shine that peeper on the Cat" Rimmer ordered.

"Yes, Mr Smee.. I… I mean Mr Rimmer" said Kryten who was wanting like nothing else to swear at the stupid hologram but couldn't do it. 'Damn my programming' he thought.

With Kryten's light shining directly into the Cat's eyes, Rimmer said 'You! You're a cat!"

"Of course I'm a cat, H for brains" said the Cat, holding his hand up in front of his face to prevent blindness.

"He's a cat, Rimmer! What's your point?"

"I thought cats could see in the dark!" said Rimmer pointing an accusing finger at the dazzled moggy.

"I never thought about that" remarked Lister, as that confused, blank look returned to his face.

"Maybe a million or so years ago cats could see in the dark, but don't forget; I'm the product of three million years of evolution! Natural selection! Survival of the fittest, that's me! Oww Yea! Yea! Yea!" and he did a little dance.

"You! You're the reason for the introduction of mandatory laws to de-sex your pets you stupid moggy!"

This ticked off the cat to no end and he lifted his hands to make himself look big.

Lister jumped in between them and held out his hands. "Alright, you two gimboids, that's enough. Rimmer, the Cat can't see in the dark; get over it! Cat, Rimmer is a smeg-head; get used to it! Now let's go!"

They hadn't travelled more than another 50 feet when Kryten stopped and said "Err… Mr Lister Sir?"

"Kryten if this is about the Cat I'll..."

"Umm, no sir it's not. But do you remember that cave we went into?"

"You mean the one we're in right now, Kryten?"

"Mmm, sort of."

"Yes Kryten, I remember the cave. What about it?" said Lister wondering if Androidicide was a crime.

"Well, it's not a cave any more!"

"What do you mean it's not a cave anymore?

"Well, Sir… You see... It's sort of turned into a tunnel, Mr Lister."

"And the difference is?"

"Well, sir; the cave was made from rock, the tunnel is… sort of… not."

"Not what Kryten? Spit it out man!"

"Not rock, sir. Look!"

Dave moved next to the babbling mechanoid and looked at what he getting all spooked about. The rocky, natural appearing cave did indeed stop being rock. In fact it looked like it was metal; shiny, smooth, and black metal.

"Smeggin' hell!" exclaimed the man who could hold six snooker balls in his cheeks.

The Cat and Rimmer joined him and both uttered words way to rude to reveal here. It suffices to say that poor Kryten blushed so much he thought his head would pop like a week old pimple.

"Shall we keep going, Mr Lister sir?"

"We've gone a whole 150 feet Kryters. We might as well keep going" said Lister, sweating profusely. "But let's keep our bazookoids at the ready, shall we chaps."

The Red Dwarf possie continued to make their way down the dark corridor in a brisk but cautious fashion. Kryten made some remarks about there not being any seams, weld marks or rivets in the material the tunnel was made from and thought that it must have been made by a very advanced race. Rimmer made some smart-arse remark about them probably being smug gits who were too smart for their own good and nuked themselves into oblivion. Lister on the other hand began to have feelings of foreboding, like something weird was about to happen.

And then it did.

"Umm… Mr Lister, sir!"

"What is it now Kryten?"

Dave moved up next to Kryten. What he saw wasn't totally unexpected, but a surprise never the less.

"A door?" said Lister.

"A door?" said Rimmer.

"A door?" said the Cat. "Press the bell and let's see if anyone's home!"

"It's not that sort of door, you demented flea-bag!" shouted the man who was so anal he sewed name tags on his ship issue condoms.

"There's not a bell Cat; but there is a keyboard. Any suggestions Kryten?" said Lister.

"Yes sir, as a matter of fact I do. Try keying in 2X4B-523P."

"Hang on! That's your model number, isn't it?"

"Err, yes sir it is."

"What makes you think that that particular series of numbers and letters will open the smeggin' door?"

"Well you could call it a hunch sir, but you'd be wrong."

"And why is that Kryters, me old mate." Lister said, starting to get a little ticked off at his mechanical friend's lack of 'getting-to-the-point!'

"I'll show you" and he pointed his light to a panel just below the ceiling.

Lister and the others looked at what Kryten was indicating and they all gasped in shock. Gouged into the metal in characters a foot high was '2X4B-523P'

"Have you been here before Kryten?" Lister asked.

"No sir I haven't, at least… I don't think I have!"

"You overpriced vacuum cleaner! Of course you've been here before" said Rimmer angrily. "Who else would carve '2X4B-523P' in a wall above a keyboard?"

"I… I… I!" stammered Kryten.

"Leave him alone goal-post head. If my man Kryten says he's never been here, then he's never been here" said the Cat before whispering to Lister "you think maybe his CPU is playing tricks on him?"

"Look!" said Dave, waggling his finger at Rimmer and the Cat. "I think Kryten would know if he's been here or not. Besides, the letters look like they've been carved into the metal by a claw or something; Kryten's lettering would have been much neater, right Krytie?"

There was no answer.

All of a sudden Dave got the point he was making and the four of them just stood ridged and looked at the carving like they would a Steven King film. They were scared out of their minds.

Minutes passed feeling like hours and nobody moved an inch until Lister said "Well, it's now or smeggin' never. If we don't go through that door then we'll probably never get off this smeggin' rock" and he walked over to the keyboard.

The others, shaken into reality by the sound of Lister's voice moved next to him, silently praying that they weren't going to encounter a Polymorph nest or a GELF colony on the other side.

Dave keyed in '2X4B-523P' and the door opened.

"Smeggin' hell" was all they said.

What the guys saw was, to say the very least, one of the last things that they would have expected to see 3 million years into deep space.

"It looks like one of the smeggin' cargo bays in Red Dwarf" said Lister, riveted to the spot and eyes bulging like he was wearing a Polymorph for shorts again. "Smeg! Look at this!" he gasped pointing to a crate.

"This… this is impossible" said Rimmer, trying not to do what was supposed to be impossible for holograms. "All of these crates have 'Jupiter Mining Corporation on them!"

"Kryten find a computer terminal and try to find out what the smeg is going on here" "Y… Y… Yes Mr Lister" stammered Kryten.

"Cat, Rimmer, lets look around and see if we can find any survivors or food or… well, anything that could give us any smeggin' clues or… ah just look around guys, ok?"

Kryten found a terminal and discovered that the computer still had power so he interfaced with it and studied the contents. The others searched crates and found a lot of 'not-much' that would be useful except some clothing, camping gear ("smeg knows why that's here" said Lister), dozens of bottles of marijuana gin (which was out of date but might come in handy as paint stripper or athlete's foot lotion) and a whole crate of Zero G Football Videos.

Slightly disappointed at their treasure hunt being a bit of a flop (although Dave was happy about the football vids), they tried to go open some doors and all of them appeared to be locked except one. They were just about to go through it when Kryten said "Sirs, I think you'd better come and hear this before you go in there."

Lister, Rimmer and the Cat came over to the computer where Kryten was and Lister said "What is it Kryten?"

"The computer is damaged so I can't access all of its information. The A.I. is not here, probably wiped. What I can tell you is this ship is the Red Dwarf III. It was commissioned 200 years after our Red Dwarf."

"Red Dwarf III?" said Lister. "You'd think they'd come up with better names for ships in the 24th smeggin' century. OK, go on Kryters."

"Umm, thank you sir. Yes, it was dedicated to the crews of Red Dwarfs I & II. It says that the first Red Dwarf was never found, obviously, because we have it, don't we sir?"

"And…?"

"Well, it says Red Dwarf II was ripped apart by a freakishly powerful solar wind just before it was due to make a stop on Ganymede. The same wind apparently destroyed 2 colonies there as well. A very large loss of life I'm sorry to say sir."

It was a terrible event and the mood of the whole group dropped quicker than an elephant from the Empire State Building. (Yes, I know a joke is a bit callous at this point but this is supposed to be a comedy, remember?)

Lister wiped his eyes and said "Anything else Kryten?"

"Yes sir, this cargo bay, a tractor beam room, the environmental control room and the room you were about to enter are the only bits that survived the crash. It doesn't say anything about how or why it happened though. I think that information might be in some of the corrupted files I've located. I can download them into my memory bank and try to decipher them later if you wish sir."

"Good idea, man. So what's in the other room?"

"It's a very large stasis chamber sir."

"Smeg!" said Lister. "Is there anyone in there?"

"Well…"

"Come on condom head" said the Cat. "Spill it!"

"Yes, G.I. Joe groin, tell us who's in there?" said Rimmer.

"It's not a 'who' sirs."

"But it is occupied, right" said Lister.

"Yes sir it is I…"

"Spit it out man, what's in there? Just tell me it's not one of those psychotic simulants"

"No sir, it's not a simulant, but… are you sure you want to hear this sir?"

"Kryten, just smeggin' tell us!"

"Sorry sir but… I… I… It's… a dragon sir."

"A dragon?" said Lister.

"A dragon?" said Rimmer.

"A dragon?" said the Cat, scared at first, but then a smile came to his face. "Is it male or female?"

"What does that matter you freaked-out fur ball?" said Rimmer with a look of disgust on his face. "It's a dragon!"

"So what, a date is a date!"

The others looked at the Cat with a mixture of worry and nausea. Trying hard to hold down last night's curry Lister said "Does the computer say anything about this dragon, Kryten?"

"That really depends."

"Depends on what?"

"Whether a message from the dragon in question counts."

"Say what?" they all gasped in unison.

"There… There appears to be a message from the dragon on the computer, sirs. It must have got loose, entered the message it left in the computer then put itself back into stasis."

"This is smegging weird! Why would a dragon leave a message, who would it leave a message for?"

"Well, sir, I… I… I… the message… it's for you sir! Actually, it's for all of us!"

Dave Lister, the last human being alive, a man who was never lost for words and always had a smart-arse comment to say about every one and every thing just stood there; eyes bulging and jaw hitting the ground. The other's looked at him waiting for him to say something, anything.

"Is it written or recorded, Kryten?" Lister said, trying to appear like he had composed himself.

"Err… both, sir."

"Well, can we hear it please?"

"Of course sir" said Kryten and hit a few keys on the computer.

"**OK, where to start?"** said a disembodied voice that sounded like Alec Guinness with a lisp (Think Parcel Mouth/Tongue from Harry Potter**). "Well, I suppose saying hello would be in order. Welcome Dave, Arnold, Cat and Kryten to the remains of Red Dwarf III. Yes, I know who you all are. David Lister, curry fanatic and all around smart arse: Heard from the twins lately? Arnold Rimmer: Underachiever and hologram: How's the hard-light bee going Iron Balls? The Cat, descended from Frankenstein and a big black tom on Titan: Has Red Dwarf run out of Chicken Marengo yet? Last but never least, Kryten 2X4B-523P: Service android and all around nice person. I must admit Kryten; I think I liked your face better before Dave put you back together after you crashed that space bike."**

Silence! It was so quiet you could have heard one of Rimmer's dandruff cells hit the ground.

"**Come on lads, say something, cat got your tongue?"**

"I wouldn't go anywhere near their tongues scale brains" said the Cat.

"Cat, it can't hear you man. It's a smegging recording!" said Dave, still in shock.

"**That's right Dave. This is a recording. And if you want to know anything else, you need to let me out of stasis"** said the dragon, stunning everyone again. **"I promise I won't eat you or anything. I'm actually a vegetarian."**

6


	3. Chapter 3

Addendum: I promised my niece I would make the chapters shorter, so here goes nothing…

Chapter 3:

"Well, that settles that" said Rimmer, turning to leave.

"What do you mean, 'that settles that,' Rimmer?" said Lister. "Where the smeg are you going?"

"What do YOU mean 'where am I going?' Where in the smeg do you think I'm going, Pluto? I'm off back to Red Dwarf as quick as my light-bee can get me there of course. All I have to do is figure a way to disengage that tractor beam and whoosh! I'm out of here, like a rat out of an aqueduct!"

"But what about the Dragon, grease stain?" said the Cat. "Don't you want to find out if it's male or female?"

They all gave Cat that look, you know the one, the one where they think he's being totally gross and he thinks it's normal.

"Forget that pile of smeg, Cat" said Lister. "Rimmer, don't you want to know how a smeggin' Dragon in stasis on a Red Dwarf made 200 flippin' years after ours knows who we are and what's happened to us 3 million smegging years into deep space?"

"No" smirked Rimmer.

Kryten jumped into the fray and said "but sir, aren't you in the least bit interested in any of this?"

"Said the spider to the fly" said Rimmer. "It's a trap! Don't you mentally incompetent gimboids get it? We let Mr or Mrs or Miss, friendly dragon out of stasis; it decides its hungry and fries us alive with its fire breath and then gobbles us up, innards and all, like pigs on a spit roast! Call me crazy, but…"

"You're crazy, man" said Lister.

"You're crazy, goal-post head" said the Cat.

"Well sir" said Kryten, almost apologetically. "I think I'm going to have to side with the others on this one, you are a little… umm… a lot…err… …wacko…. if you don't mind my saying so, sir."

"You're serious!" said Rimmer, nostrils flared so wide you could park White and Blue Midget in them, side by side "You guys are completely deranged; do you really want to let that creature out of stasis? Have you no sense of self-preservation, any of you?"

"Well sir, the dragon did say it was a vegetarian and it promised not…"

"And you would take the word of a dragon, a complete stranger? Are you mad?"

The arguing went back and forwards for about 30 minutes. Each life-form putting their ideas, suggestions and fears onto the table and it was mulled over by all.

In the end, Rimmer said "Well, stuff all of you. If you air-heads want to let it out, do it without me. Just let me get back to Red Dwarf and then you can do what you want."

"That's it, sir. My goodness, you're a lot smarter than you look; well, you'd have to be because you're such a smeeeee…"

"Do you really want to finish that sentence, Kryten?" said Rimmer angrily. "If so, let me know before hand so I can get some really long jumper cables and attach one end to the power back on Red Dwarf; you can guess where the other end is going to go, ok?"

"Sorry sir, facetious mode on stand-by. Bringing up embarrassment mode, I… I… I…"

"Just get to the smeggin' point Kryten" said Lister, who by now had found himself a chair and had made himself as comfortable as he could, despite the circumstances.

"And make it fast, metal mouth" yawned the Cat wearily. "It's already way past my pre-breakfast snack and nap!"

"Sorry sirs" muttered Kryten. "Well, what I was going to say was maybe before we do anything, we should go back to Red Dwarf and consult with Holly about it. He does have an IQ of…"

"6000" said Rimmer.

"6000" said Lister.

"What 'IS' this IQ thing that you guys are always going on about?" said the Cat.

They all looked at the Cat, amazed as usual with his lack of anything even resembling an IQ.

"Yes, well; anyway, that's what I think we should do, consult Holly" said Kryten, meekly.

"I think you might be right, Kryten" said Lister, picking up his bazookoid and hoisting it onto his shoulder. "If nothing else it'll give us time to take in all of this smeg. And there's a heck of a lot of it to absorb!"

"At last" said Rimmer, rolling his eyes and sneering. "I was beginning to think I was the only sane person here."

"Yea, right, nostril-hair" said the Cat, retrieving his own weapon. "You're as about as sane as a one-legged man entering a butt kicking contest."

Rimmer went to say something, but the others just walked away and headed back to the Dwarf

"Just as well" he said to himself. "I was about to say something so cringingly insulting and mind-bogglingly nasty that even Napoleon Bonaparte himself would have fallen to his knees and cried like a blubbering baby!"

2


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

Back at Red Dwarf, the group of friends… err… mates… umm… acquaintances, yes that'll do, acquaintances; anyway, they got back to Red Dwarf without another argument and once back in Holly's field of supervision they began filling him in on what had transpired. Kryten then downloaded the corrupt files from RD III and Holly set to work on repairing them.

By the time the got to the drive room, Holly had repaired what he could.The vid screen in the drive room came on and Holly's cheerful face appeared with a smile you could melt titanium with.

"What's with the smeggin' smile Holly, you been thinking about Hilly again?" said Lister as he tucked into a mutton vindaloo.

"Yea, chrome-dome" said the Cat as he slurped up a bowl of Crispi's. "What's got you all happy-like?"

"I know something you don't know" said Holly in a facetious singing-like voice, wiggling his ears in a gesture of defiance.

"Oh, here we go" said Rimmer, arms folded and nostrils flared. "He's going to go all smug-git on us and make us guess what he found or something."

"That's right, Arnold. You have to guess what I found" said the AI who once pretended to gets his star-charts from a children's book.

"Could you give us a clue please Holly" said Kryten as he did some ironing while they spoke.

"No clues, you have to guess."

They all looked at each other and the prevailing thought going though most of their minds was 'how in the smeg have we survived this long with a computer with advanced senility and a flare for the ridiculous.'

Everyone except the Cat, of course; the only thing going through his mind was the thought of whether the dragon was male or female and, if female, whether she'd prefer he wore a lavender or cream suit on their first date.

"Holly!" screamed Rimmer, whose face was turning so red they all thought his light-bee was going to explode. "Just smegging tell us what the smegging smeg you found or I'll... I'll…"

"You'll what, Arnold" asked Holly. "Hold your breath until you turn blue? You forget, mate! I control your hologram."

And with that he proceeded to turn Rimmer's face a whole lot of different colours one after the other. First it was chartreuse, then indigo, then avocado, then… Well, you get the point.

"OK, Holly, that's enough" said Lister; "I think he's learned his smeggin' lesson."

"OK Dave" said Holly and returned Rimmer to his natural colour.

"Holly, you're a goit! A smeggin' ugly, bald, ugly goit!" said Rimmer abusively.

"I'm a what?" asked Holly.

"You heard me, you iPod wannabe!"

Holly didn't answer back, he didn't have to. Rimmer knew he had pushed Holly too far and now it was just a matter of waiting to see what Holly would do to him.

"OK" said Holly. "So you're not going to guess; you guys are really boring, you know that?"

"Just smeggin' get on with it Holly. The dragon, Red Dwarf III! Why did they crash? Where did the dragon come from? How the smeg does it know all about us?" said Lister, head in his hands, frustrated.

Sorry, anyway; the ship didn't crash; it was pulled into the moon by its own tractor beam."

"Oh dear" said Kryten "That was a bit of bad luck."

"Bad luck had nothing to do with it. It seems a second technician aboard the ship was supposed to replace a porous circuit on the TB and…"

"TB" said the Cat, face scrunched up in disgust. "Isn't that a disease or something?"

"It's the tractor beam Cat, now shut up and let him finish!" said Lister.

"Thanks Dave. Anyway, this second technician apparently put the circuit in backwards and it turned itself on with full power as they were passing the moon and the got pulled into it. Unlike us, it hit the moon so hard it caused a crater the size of Ireland!"

"That's terrible Holly, what happened to the crew?"

"They all got off using their smaller ships, that is, except for this particular techie. Apparently they tied him to the tractor beam machine and left him behind.

"Serves him right; the stupid gimboid. Imagine not being able to replace a simple porous circuit properly!" said Rimmer smugly.

"Yea, imagine that" quipped Lister. "Why that's almost as bad as not being able to fix a drive plate properly and nuking a whole ship!"

"Yea, you're right; imagine th… Wait a minute!" said Rimmer, all of a sudden realising who Lister was talking about. "You bastard, you're talking about me!"

"Well DUH!" said the Cat who had finished his Crispi's and was now combing his eyebrows.

"That wasn't my fault! If you hadn't gone into stasis I…I…"

"Hey!" said Lister, pointing an angry, accusing finger at the hologram of the man who had to hypnotise women to get a date. "That's a load of bollocks that is! You screwed up, face the smeggin' facts!"

"You…"

"Please, sirs, I think we have more important issues to discuss right now. The fact that Mr Rimmer killed the whole crew is totally irrelevant to this conversation" said Kryten.

"Kryten, you're a goit" said Rimmer.

"Keep going Holly" said Lister.

"Anyway, they all left the ship and when it crashed all that was left in-tact was the cargo bay, a stasis room, the atmospheric control room, the traction beam room and a second technician. Although I'm not sure about the techie, but I suppose you'll find that out when you go back."

"So what about that smeggin' dragon, Holl, what's its story?" said Lister.

"Yea Mr 6000 IQ, whatever that is; what about the dragon; is it male or female?" said the cat, curling up in his favourite spot on top on the navicom, where it was nice and warm.

"Well actually Cat, from what I can gather from the files Kryten downloaded, dragons are androgynous."

"Andy who? Do you mean like Captain Clean? It's a robot?"

"What's that mean Holl?" asked Lister.

"Androgynous means they are both sexes and neither sex. They have the bits of both male and female and are usually able to produce young without a partner" said Holly.

"Sound boring" said the Cat with a look of disgust on his face, which quickly turned into an evil looking smile and he sat bolt upright on the navicom. "But then again, if I was this Andy person, I could make all of my dreams come true."

"You really are disgusting, Cat" said Lister.

"That's a bit judgemental Lister" said Rimmer with a huge smirk on his face. "After all, how many of us here have actually had sex with themselves?"

All heads turned towards Lister with knowing glances. Poor Dave went all red in his chipmunk-like cheeks and he said "hang on; she was a different person… that is… it's not the same."

"Listen" said Holly all impatient like. "Do you blokes want to know about this dragon or what?"

"Sorry Holly" said Kryten apologetically. "Please continue."

3


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5:

"Right" said Holly "The dragon is from Earth. Apparently they've always been there, we just couldn't see them. They were… how did the files put it? Oh yea, they were out of phase with the rest of the planet."

"And what does that mean, Holly, you wonderful, beautiful piece of advanced technology" said Rimmer, hoping to get back into Holly's good books.

Holly looked at him with his 'it's too late to suck up bonehead' look and suddenly Rimmer was sporting a slick black hairdo with a part three quarters over and a little Hitler moustache.

When Kryten saw what Holly had done his eyes bulged like he was being strangled and he covered his mouth to hide the fact that his mouth was open wider than whale eating krill. Lister on the other hand, nearly spit up his vindaloo and had to quickly turn away completely and pretend to sneeze or something. But not the Cat, nope! He just stared his usual blank looking stare at Rimmer, wondering what was going on.

What?" said Rimmer.

"Nothing man" said Lister, trying not to laugh but doing a really bad job of it.

"No Sir, it's nothing, really" said Kryten, hoping his guilt chip didn't kick in too soon.

"Keep going Holl"

"Anyway, out of phase means they could interact with things like animals, plants and humans, but none of them knew that until they were being eaten."

"So they could see us and eat things but we couldn't see them?" asked Lister.

"That's about the gist of it, yea"

"It sounds like the dragons were in a different dimension to us Holly" said Kryten.

"Pretty much Kryten, yea, that's what I thought; maybe the two dimensions were so close together they actually mingled, but in a way that the other one was dominant. So for centuries, the dragons pretty much did what they pleased. Makes you think."

"About what?" asked Rimmer scratching under his nose, wondering what it was that was making it itch so much.

"I'm sorry; what?"

"Makes you think about what?"

"Oh! Sorry; yea, it makes you think about all the people who went missing over the years and whether or not they actually might have ended up as dragon fertilizer."

"Holly man, that's pretty smeggin' gross even for you!" said Lister disgusted with the senile computer's attitude.

"He's probably right though Lister" said Rimmer, an knowing smile moving across his face. "Maybe Glenn Miller wasn't taken by aliens; maybe he ended up as a dragon's vindaloo. Maybe Scott didn't eat Oates after all!"

"And you're even smeggin' worse. Ok Holly, so we know that originally these dragons couldn't be seen, what happened to change that?"

Holly continued. "The boffins on Earth at the beginning of the 25th century started experimenting with something called phase shifting, hoping to be able to explore other dimensions, but in the end all they accomplished was the ability to actually see the dragons. They also found that they could touch them so they decided to capture some of them and experiment on them."

"The poor dragons" said Kryten, feeling sorry for the hungry carnivores. "But that's what humans do; they don't understand something so they experiment on it. Did they even try to talk to them, maybe relate to them in some way or…"

"Don't go all smegging New Age on us Kryters" said Lister. "These things were eating humans after all. What did you expect them to do?"

"So what did experimenting on them accomplish Holly" asked Rimmer. "What did they find out?"

"Well according to the files Kryten gave me, nothing! Their physiology was nothing special, it was similar to other large reptiles; none of their organs, bones or any other body part had any life-extending, medicinal or any other useful properties so they just started putting them in zoos."

"But we heard it smeggin' talk, Holly" said Lister. "What does it say about that?"

"Not a sausage."

"Do you think maybe I missed some files Holly." asked Kryten.

"No, I don't think so Kryten. The one's you gave me seemed to be pretty complete."

"But what about the tractor beam, Holl" asked Lister "Why did RD III crash and we just sort of just, landed?"

"I dunno Dave. Maybe the dragon reprogrammed it when it came out of stasis and left that message.

"That's probably what happened Mr Lister, sir" said Kryten. "It knew we were coming so it programmed the TB to turn on and drag us down when we were passing."

"But how, how did it know we were coming?" asked Rimmer. "How did it know all that stuff about us?"

"I'm sorry Arnold. There nothing about that in these files. I suppose you're going to have to go back and let it out of the stasis chamber to find out."

"There is no smegging way I'm going back to let that monster out!"

'Yea, you're smeggin' right Rimmer, as usual" said Lister. "Holly, can you still turn Rimmer's light-bee off like you used too?"

"I sure can Dave."

"So if he chickens out and decides to try and take off in Starbug or something without us you can stop him?"

"Yes, Dave."

"You really are a bastard, do you know that Lister" said Rimmer, really, really cheesed-off.

"I had a good teacher Rimmer! Living in the same smeggin' quarters as you will do that to a man!"

"Maybe I'd better come too Dave" said Holly. "I'll just download myself into my mobile unit, hang on a mo."

While they were waiting for Holly, the others tried to wake the cat who had fallen asleep during the discussion about the dragon.

"Cat, Cat! Wake up, man" said Lister, shaking the slumbering moggy.

"Huh? What? Hey! Why did you wake me up you stupid monkey? I was having a really great dream about me and the lady dragon!" said the Cat.

"It's not a lady, man; it's… oh never mind – where's Holly?"

"I'm here Dave" said Holly from his trolley.

"Brutal, right let's go. Rimmer – you too, there's no use hiding behind that swivel chair."

Rimmer crawled out from his hidey hole and said "I really, really hate you Lister! Do you know that?"

3


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6:

Back in the cave (which became a tunnel; which became a door; which became a Red Dwarf III cargo bay), the skeleton crew of Red Dwarf stopped because Holly stopped and said "Kryten, the material this tunnel is made from isn't metal, it's rock. It's either very highly polished or it's been melted."

"Are you sure Holly? Kryten asked. "It looks and even feels like metal."

"What could do this to smeggin' rock, Holl?" asked Lister.

"Well, Dave. I'd hazard a guess and say it was probably something along the lines of… oh, let's see… how about the dragon" answered Holly sarcastically.

"But those files Kryten downloaded to you didn't mention anything about the dragon breathing smegging fire, Holly" said Rimmer nervously.

"That's right, Arnold; but they never mentioned anything about it talking either."

"Good point."

"Thank you Arnold" said Holly and proceeded to give Rimmer his own hair back.

"Can we stop all this smeg and get going? I really want to find out what the heck is going on here" said Lister impatiently as he continued further along the cave… err, tunnel.

Once in the cargo bay they played Holly the recording that the dragon left and waited for him to give them his opinion of it. He said "I haven't got an opinion, sorry."

"So do you think we should open the stasis chamber and let the dragon out?" asked Rimmer, hoping the answer would be a definitive no.

"Well, it's no skin off my nose either way. But I can't see why not."

"OK, we do this, but with bazookoids ready and aimed at the stasis chamber while it opens" said Lister, cocking his weapon. "Holly, can you open the door while we cover it?"

"OK, Dave."

So they all went into the stasis room and prepared.

The Red Dwarf Possie stood ready, bazookoids loaded, cocked and aimed at the door of the chamber. Lister said "right'o Holly, open her up."

They waited for what seemed like an eternity for the door to start to open. Sweat poured from the pores of Lister and the Cat; Kryten was so scared his voice unit got stuck in a loop and all they heard was "I… I… I…"

Pulses raced, nerves twitched and as the door opened, Rimmer did that thing that holograms weren't supposed to be able to do!

And then they saw it!

They couldn't believe their eyes as they beheld a 15 foot high dragon skeleton.

"Smeg" said Lister as he wiped hot, salty sweat from his eyes.

"Smeg" said Rimmer hoping there was no smell.

"Smeeeeeeeeee" said Kryten.

"There goes my date" said the Cat.

"Will you shut the smegging smeg up about your date you simple-minded gimboid of a cat!" screamed Rimmer.

"Bite me goal-post head!" replied the Cat, sniffing the air and looking around. "And what's that smell?"

"This is ridiculous; what the smeg happened here Holly? Did the stasis chamber malfunction or something?" said Lister really, really smegged off at their apparent lack of luck.

"Beats me, Dave" Holly said, plugging into a socket on the chamber. He searched the computer for any information but eventually said "there's nothing here that gives me any indication of why this chamber failed."

"So that's it, we'll never know what happened or how this thing knew all about us?"

"Or if it was a girl or a boy" said the Cat.

"CAT WILL YOU SHUT THE SMEG UP!" they all shouted.

And then they all looked at Kryten.

"Kryten, you said 'smeg' and you didn't stutter" said Lister.

"Did I sir, Sorry; I was so angry that I didn't notice" replied the only known Diva Droid product to over-ride its 'there's-a-new-model-on-its-way' shut-down procedure.

"Forget that tot" said Rimmer. "Let's do something about this tractor beam and get off this rock."

Disappointed and dejected, the boys from the Dwarf were about to leave the stasis room when Holly said "half a mo, there's something else in here besides the skeleton."

"What is it Holly?" asked Lister.

"It's a piece of paper, Dave."

Lister reached in and grabbed the paper. He opened it up and his eyes bulged like he had just seen Kristine Kochanski naked on a horse. "Smeggin' hell!"

"What is it Lister" asked Rimmer. "What does it say?"

"You're not going to believe this"

"Believe what sir" said Kryten.

"It's a note, from the dragon."

"It is? What does she say?" said the Cat.

They all looked at the Cat with stares that could kill a rouge simulant where it stood.

"OK, OK, I'm sorry! What does IT say?"

Lister looked at the note again, not really believing what he saw. Eventually he said "it says: 'I'm in the other smegging chamber you boneheads.'

"Say what?" said the Cat.

"Oh my" said Kryten"

"What other chamber?" Rimmer said.

Lister looked back at the note and said "Smeg! It says 'the one behind you Dave.'"

They all slowly turned and looked behind them and saw the second chamber, but it was half covered with debris and dust and frankly, not a lot of people would have spotted it. Ah! Who am I kidding; a blind man could have seen it.

"There it is" said Holly cheerfully.

"Thanks Holl; we'd have never found it without you" said Lister, still wondering how they could have missed it.

"The computer never mentioned two stasis chambers" said Kryten nervously, hoping he hadn't missed an important file when he downloaded them.

"And it never mentioned two dragons either" said Holly. "Maybe some of the files were wiped or something."

"I don't think the files really matter now" said Rimmer calmly, almost like he had a heart.

"Thank you sir" said Kryten. "That really means a lot to me."

"Maybe I had you all wrong Arnold" said Holly

But his demeanour soon changed. "All that really matters is that you two mechanical munchkins screwed up - the two things with the highest IQs on the ship and you smegged it up good and proper!"

"C'mon Rimmer, that's a bit harsh isn't it" said Dave, sticking up for his mechanical pals.

"Yea helmet hair, back off a little" said the Cat.

"It's alright sirs" said Kryten.

Holly didn't say a thing. He wouldn't do anything to Rimmer yet but he had a long memory, sometimes."

"You OK, Holl?" said Lister.

"I'm fine thanks Dave. Shall we clear this junk away and open the chamber do you think?" said Holly.

Not a word was spoken as they cleaned up the mess and prepared to open the second chamber.

3


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7:

With the air in the stasis room so thick with tension you could have cut it with a mining laser, the now very weary Dwarfers made themselves ready for the opening of the second chamber. They all stood with bazookoids at the ready, again; and Holly opened the chamber door.

"**And about smegging time too"** said a voice from inside the stasis chamber before it was even fully opened. When the door had opened as far as it could, out stepped the dragon. **"Hi guys, how are you?"**

Well, it was just too much for the brave boys from the dwarf. They let the pointy ends of their bazookoids fall as their jaws hit the ground and they began to whimper. And Rimmer did that thing again.

"**Well aren't you going to say hello"** said the dragon with what the boys hoped was a smile and not a look of hunger.

"Hello dragon" said Holly from across the room. "Sorry about the others, I think they might just be in a bit of shock."

"**Well I did warn them, Holly. I did let them know what they would find when they opened the chamber, it wasn't like I was hiding anything."**

Holly just smiled and said "preparing someone to meet a dragon, I mean a real live dragon, a creature that even I thought was just myth and legend; is like preparing someone to receive a rectal exam – until it actually happens, you ain't never going to be ready for it. And even then I not so sure you could ever be prepared for either"

"**Ah, yes the famous dry Holly wit. But never the less a fair and apt analogy" said the dragon. "Shall we snap them out of their mesmerisation?"**

"Maybe I should do it" said Holly and proceeded to let loose with a very loud klaxon horn.

"Alright Holly, we hear you, man" said Lister, gaining enough of an awareness of his surroundings to lift the barrel of his bazookoid back up.

"A dead man could hear you, and I did; you wind-up gramophone" said Rimmer.

"Yes, well; I… I… I…., thank you Holly, maybe you can help me replace my hearing circuits when we get back to Red Dwarf? stammered Kryten.

"Are you a girl or a boy?" asked the Cat, hoping it was the former.

Lister reached over and smacked the Cat on the back of the head. "Enough of that crap, Cat."

"**It's alright, Dave"** said the dragon. **"The Cat has asked a valid question, even though Holly has already answered it. Cat, I'm androgynous, I'm both male and female and neither; and yes, I would be happy to go on a date with you, but we can only hold hands, is that OK."**

"A date's a date" said the Cat, jumping up and clicking his heels in the air.

"**Now, let's get the introductions finalised, Guys; my name is so long and hard to pronounce in my language that it would take you about 3 months just to say it, so you can just call me Sam."**

"Sam" said Lister, why Sam?"

"**Why not?"**

Lister clicked his finger and pointed at Sam and said "good point."

"That's all well and smegging good, Sam; but what we want to know is how the smeg you know so much about us" said Rimmer.

"Yes Sam" said Kryten, "we're all very curious about you pre-cognitive abilities."

"I'm not" said the Cat, batting his eye lids at the dragon. "All I want to know is would you prefer to see me in lavender or cream?"

"SHUT THE SMEG UP CAT" said everyone except Sam.

"Cheers, Kryten, you did it again?" said Lister, very impressed with his mechanical pal.

"Did what sir" asked the android.

"You said 'smeg' without stuttering."

Kryten didn't say anything, he only looked away embarrassed. If he was a human, his face would have been a very bright shade of red.

Then the dragon made a noise like a Tasmanian Devil in a blender and it scared the living smeg out of everyone, even Holly.

With a look of fear on all of their faces, the Red Dwarf crew lifted their bazookoids and pointed them straight at Sam.

"**Hey! Hang on guys"** said the dragon. **"I was only laughing, sorry to scare you."**

"That was a laugh?" said Rimmer. "I thought we were goners then, you stupid scaly smeg-head! You scared the hell out of me."

Lister leaned over to the paranoid hologram, the man who used to hang his underpants on coat hangers, and said "umm, Rimmer; it's probably not a good idea to insult a 15 foot tall dragon, if you know what I mean."

"**It's alright Dave"** said Sam **"I won't eat poor old Arnold. He'd probably only give me indigestion anyway. Besides, as I said in my message, I'm a vegetarian."**

"That's good to know, Mr… Mrs… Miss… Sam, sir… madam… err… dragon" stammered Kryten, trying hard not to embarrass himself but failing dismally.

"**Beside, it's the chemicals found in some plants that let me breathe fire, meat eaters can't do that?"**

"You can breathe fire" asked Lister, moving back a few steps.

"**Yes, Dave. How do you think I burnt through the rock and made the tunnel you came down?"**

"I knew it" exclaimed Holly smugly. "I knew that wasn't made from metal! I was right and you were wrong Kryten!"

"Yes, very good Holly; well you do have an IQ of 6000" said Kryten.

"6000s not much" said Holly. "It's the same IQ as…"

"Will someone please tell me what an IQ thing is" said the frustrated feline, plonking himself down on a crate.

Kryten and Holly attempted to make the Cat understand what IQ meant but no matter how hard they tried, the cat just didn't get it.

"It's a scientific measurement of a person's intelligence" said Kryten.

"Yea, but what is it?" said the Cat.

"It's a means by which people can ascertain the level of how other people understand the universe" said Holly.

"Yea, but what is it?" said the Cat.

"**It's a smarty-pants meter"** said Sam.

The Cat looked at the mechanical life-forms and said "well; why didn't you guys just say that?"

Sam made that noise that was his laugh again but this time the guys didn't wet themselves, well; maybe Rimmer did.

"**Shall I tell you my story then chaps"** said Sam.

3


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8:

"**It's a fairly long tale, fellows; so I would find a comfortable place to sit if I were you"** said Sam.

The Dwarfers didn't argue with the dragon's logic. They found 3 chairs and a box suitable for parking one's rear-ends and all soon sat, waiting with bated breath for the tale.

Once seated, Lister said "OK, Sam. We're all yours, err… figuratively speaking that is."

"**I know what you mean, Dave. Now; no questions until my tale is completed, please."**

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Sam's Tale – There's not much humour in this first part of the tale as it tells of just how smeggy we were to the dragons.

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**Dragons have existed as long a humans but for some weird reason, we were what science called 'out of phase' with the rest of the planet. It wasn't another dimension, merely a paradox of time and space which hadn't been solved up to the time of my being placed in stasis.**

**So throughout history we were able to exist right under the noses of the humans.**

**There are, or maybe I should say, were - although I'm not sure how many of us still exist, if any; Dave and I possibly have more in common than he thinks - two kinds of dragons: Meat eaters and vegetarians.**

**Meat eaters were usually really cranky gits who not only took wild animals for their food; they also ate farmer's animals and occasionally, for a little fun and variation in their menu, the farmers themselves. They cannot breathe fire but their breath was so bad it could stun an elephant. They were on average about 25 percent larger than the other type of dragon, of which I am one of.**

**We vegetarians were pretty harmless although occasionally one of us may lose our footing and trip, squashing a human; usually after eating certain types of vegetation that had either a narcotic or alcoholic effect on us. We were the good guys, but we could be right naughty sometimes. Occasionally, just for a bit of fun, young vegetarian dragons started fires and got a big laugh out of watching the humans try to put them out and unfortunately, sometimes humans got hurt.**

**But we were never as bad to you as you were to yourselves.**

**So up until the twenty-fourth century we pretty much had the run of the planet. We could eat what we wanted, play as hard as we wanted and it never entered our minds that this would ever change.**

**Then the humans began experimenting with dimensional portals and as far as I know they did eventually get the science right. But before that, all they accomplished was what they called 'phase alignment.'**

**That's when they found us.**

**Never, and I mean never, did they ever try to communicate with us or to try to distinguish between the carnivores and vegetarians. They experimented on us from day one; they cut us up and tried to find out why we were out of phase with the rest of Earth. When they couldn't work that out they tried to discover whether or not any part of our bodies were useful in any way; you know, like medicines and the like. But again, they found nothing.**

**They never found out that we could talk and they never found out that the vegetarians could breathe fire; all they had to do was stop hurting us and we would have helped them. But no; after they discovered we were pretty much useless to them scientifically, they started hunting us for sport and putting us in zoos.**

**The reason I was in this stasis chamber was that I and my parent; the dragon in the other one, which, as you may have guessed by now, was damaged in the crash and eventually perished; were being transported to the zoo on Charon. We were to be the first of a 10 dragon exhibit, but as you can see, we never made it there.**

**From what I could discover from the ships computer when we crashed, and I was inadvertently let out of stasis, was that we were somewhere between Neptune and Pluto when we went through a time hole, or in this case, a time and space hole. We were transported smeg knows how many light years and real years away from our solar system.**

**Afterwards, Red Dwarf III travelled for about two years in the direction they all hoped would be the right one to take them home. Then, as we passed this moon, the tractor beam malfunctioned and it pulled the ship into it. The crew got away, as you will have already found out from the ship's computer, but we were left to perish; along with the technician who caused the malfunction in the first place.**

**I'm not sure how long it was before my stasis chamber opened but my parent was very much a skeleton by this stage so it must have been a very long time.**

**I left the message you found on the computer and put myself back into stasis.**

**And here we are!**

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By this time Lister, the Cat and Kryten were sobbing like babies and passing one of the Cat's silk handkerchiefs around.

"That is such a sad story, Mr Sam" said Kryten, oil leaking from his eye sockets.

The Cat was blubbering and cried "those poor dragons, your poor parent, you poor thing, you…"

"That's smeggin' typical though isn't it" said Lister, sniffling like he had just had a volcano-hot vindaloo. "Humans find something different so they cut it up and run smeggin' tests on it, just like they wanted to do with Frankenstein."

"**Just think Dave"** said Sam. **"If they had got their hands on your pet cat, our friend the Cat here would never have existed."**

"Yea, that's right! I suppose that's why they made me their god"

"Yawn-a-rama' said Rimmer, his hand over his mouth. "Don't go on about that god thing again Lister. You were just in the right place at the right time. I could have been god, you know; but I never catch the lucky smegging breaks like you do."

"Yea, right Rimmer; I'm the luckiest man in the universe; maybe that's because I'm the only man in the universe. Did you forget about that little detail, dinosaur breath?"

"Please, Mr Lister, Mr Rimmer; a little decorum please. Don't embarrass us in front of Sam" said Kryten.

Same laughed his unusual laugh and said **"it's alright, Kryten. If these two didn't argue all the time I would have been very disappointed. It's exactly how I knew they would be."**

"Yes, about that Sam, sir. This tale is incomplete, is it not?"

"What do you mean Kryten" asked Lister.

"What are you going on about Captain Condom-Head" said the Cat, still drying his tears.

"Is your smug-git chip stuck on 'smeg-head' again" said Rimmer.

"Err… Well… Yes, that is no… I… I… I…" stammered the ironing android.

"Come-on Kryten, out with it" said Lister.

"Well, sirs, it's just that the tale so far hasn't mentioned how Sam knows about us; about how he knows our names, what we've done and what has happened to us."

"Yea, that's right Sam. How did you know to get the computer to turn that tractor beam on, or leave that message and that note we found in your parent's chamber."

"Or how you knew my nick-name was 'iron-balls" asked Rimmer, smiling.

"Or about the Chicken Marengo and, oh; that reminds me, I'm really hungry" said the Cat.

"You're always smegging hungry" remarked Rimmer.

"Except when he's asleep" said Lister.

"**Yes, I know I haven't covered that yet, I just thought we might have a little intermission before I continued"** said Sam.

"Intermission's over, you organic gas-match" said Rimmer impatiently. "Get on with it."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9:

"**Organic gas-match?" **said Sam, a look of anger coming over his face for the first time since the Dwarfers had encountered him.

"Err… Rimmer" said Lister quietly, "Maybe you should apologise to…"

"Don't worry Lister" said the man who could only get dates with semi-conscious and disfigured women. "The dragon said he wouldn't eat us and…"

"**Arnold"** said Sam smiling, but not in a happy way. **"I know I said I wouldn't eat you, but if you continue to insult me I may just have to fry your light bee. Is that fair enough?"**

Rimmer gulped and looked down. "Not again" he said as he did that thing yet again.

"Man, what a smeggin' pong!" said Lister, holding his nose and waving the air.

"P U" said the Cat copying his race's god's actions. "Man you need to get a tune up, maybe a service 'cos something in there needs tightening up!"

Kryten being the most sensible of the four Dwarf-keteers, apologised for Rimmer and asked Sam to please continue.

"**Very well, Kryten"** said Sam. **"Dragons have a limited pre-cognitive ability. They see two things: They see details of their life's quest and they see their own death. I began to see images and movie-like scenes of things you guys did and things that happened to you as well as things that will happen in your future.**

**It all started when Dave was let out of stasis. I didn't see everything, but I did see a lot.**

**I saw the Cat come up from the cargo decks for the first time looking very cool and Arnold tricking Dave into doing stupid stock–takes; I saw Dave give birth to twins and I saw Kryten crash his space bike.**

**When the Polymorph came on board I saw you battle it; I saw Dave marry a G.E.L.F; I was there when you travelled back in time and helped JFK assassinate him-self and I was witness to the gun-fight at the Red Dwarf corral."**

"You saw me marry that, thing? You do realise we needed an engine part, that's the only reason I agreed to do it" yelled Lister, standing up.

"Yes Dave: replied Sam.

"He keeps using that excuse, Sam. We don't really believe him!" said Rimmer, smiling like a git

"Yes; I know Arnold."

"You thought I looked cool?" said the Cat

"Yes Cat."

"Can we hear more please Sam" said Kryten.

"Of course Kryten" said Sam.

Sam went through the years that the Red Dwarf skeleton crew had travelled the cosmos, detailing many and varied scenarios.

"**I was so happy for Arnold when he got his hard-light bee; very proud of Kryten when he got his pilots licence, shame about that time-hole through. But being in that backwards reality was a bit of fun for a while wasn't it."**

"Maybe for these guys it was" said the Cat with a look on his face that let everyone know that was one adventure he'd rather not remember. "But I couldn't sit down properly for a week!"

"**Oh, yes… Sorry Cat! Well, what about that time…? No, actually, we won't go into that one"** said Sam.

"Which one?" Lister asked.

"**Umm, does steak with blue cheese sauce give you a hint?"**

"Yes, I think we might give that one a smeggin' miss if you don't mind."

"I though you might" said Sam and it continued with its story.

"**You overcame the despair squid, defeated the inquisitor and you got away from Legion. You guys have done it all. But you only just made it out of Arnold's mind didn't you?"**

"That place was creepy" said the Cat, screwing up his face in disgust. "I knew bone-brain's mind was warped, but that even surprised me."

"Do we have to talk about my mind" said Rimmer, embarrassed to the point of blushing.

"**Dave, you found out that you were your own father and that Kris was your mother, that was exiting, wasn't it?"**

Lister just looked sadly at Sam and said "it would have been a lot better if that GELF ship hadn't fired on that dimensional tunnel thingy and thrown Kris back to her side. And I only just managed to catch that tube gizmo with me in it."

"**Yes, that was a bit of bad luck really"** said Sam.

"Any other painful memories you'd like to bring up, Sam" said Rimmer.

"**Well Arnold. We could talk about Rimmer World for a while. How long were you in that jail cell for?"**

Rimmer folded his arms in defiance, pouted and his nostrils flared wider than a jumbo jet hanger. "Long e-smegging-nough, now can we talk about something else, please?"

Sam leaned over and whispered into Rimmer's ear. "**Don't worry Arnold, I won't tell them the real reason why you gave up being Ace Rimmer and returned to Red Dwarf. No-one needs to know you smegged up so badly your ship ignored all of your commands and kept looking until she found a really good Ace."**

"Err, yea, thanks, Sam" said Rimmer looking around to make sure none of the others heard what he had said.

"**Well, what about that time you fought that psychotic virus, you sent its bony nucleus packing didn't you?"**

"I lost a smeggin' arm Sam!" yelled Lister.

"But the nannos built you another one didn't they Dave" said Sam.

"Yea they did, but; ah never smeggin' mind."

Kryten asked "what else did you see Sam?"

"**Well, speaking of Kryten's nannos, I saw them steal Red Dwarf and then I saw them rebuild it for you, using the original plans and you guys ended up with a really cool ship."**

"It's a beaut" said Holly. There's so much more for me to do with the new one, lots of new toys to play with.

Sam smiled knowingly as he recalled the results of the nanno's work in another, really - really stupid reality, where the nannos actually rebuilt the crew as well.

"Well that's our past Sam" said Kryten. "What about our future?"

"**Ah yes, now - this is where the fun really starts! Are you sure you want to know?"** asked Sam.

"Yes!" said Kryten.

"Yes!" said Rimmer.

"Yes!" said Lister.

"You have really beautiful eyes Sam, did you know that" said the Cat, sighing.

The rest of the Red Dwarf Possie looked at the Cat with resignation, realising that nothing they said would actually shut him up.

"**Thank you Cat"** said Sam. **"Now, let's tell you all about your future; the parts that I know about anyway.**


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

The Dwarfers sat with bated breath as Sam regaled them with tales of their futures.

"**Do you guys remember when you went into light speed and you started seeing future echoes?"**

"How could we smeggin' forget, Sam" said Lister.

"**So you remember seeing your-self aged 171, Dave"**

"Yea, I told myself it was Bexley who got blown up and not me."

"All I remember about it Lister, is that you are still going to be as big a goit then as you are now."

"**Well, anyway"** said Sam. **"Three months after that happens you guys will come across a small water planet with one, very small island on it."**

"No other land?" asked Rimmer.

"**Not a sausage, Arnold."**

"So what happens there, Sam" asked Kryten.

"**There's a spring coming up in the middle of the island and you, Dave and you, Cat drink from it. Minutes later you will be the same age you are now."**

"Smeg!" said Lister.

"Smeg!" said Rimmer.

"Oh, dear!" said Kryten.

"How the heck and I supposed to drink from a spring!" said the Cat. "Is it hollow? Do you put it in a glass and suck the water up with it like a straw?"

"**It's not that sort of spring, Cat"** said Sam, smiling.

"A spring is a natural flow of water from beneath the ground" said Holly.

Lister tried not to scream as he listened to the Cat's ranting. "What's in the smeggin' water that makes us young again Sam?"

"**I don't know Dave. It just does"** answered the dragon**. "And Kryten, you immerse yourself in the water and all of your mechanicals become like new."**

'Wonderful!" exclaimed Kryten, wiggling his head around.

Well that's all very well and smegging good, but what happens after that?" asked Rimmer.

Sam thought for a moment and then said **"one year after that, you find a planet where the survivors of the Cat race ended up."**

"We what?" said the Cat, standing straight up in surprise.

"**You find the rest of the Cats, Cat."**

"Lady Cats?"

"**Lots of them"** said Sam.

The Cat smiled an evil smile and said nothing. But they all knew what he was thinking.

"So wait just a smeggin' minute, you mean we find the cat race, the ones who evolved on Red Dwarf and left in search of Fuschal, err… Fiji?" said Lister, looking shocked.

Rimmer put his head in his hands, screamed and said "are you telling us we find more stupid, fetid, lumbering, sub-moronic cats?"

"Hey, those are fighting words, helmet-hair!" said the Cat, putting up his dukes.

"You're a nasty weasel of a man, Rimmer aren't you" said Lister. "A right little smeggin' ferret!"

Holly didn't say anything; he merely gave Rimmer the whiskers, nose, ears and tail of the animal that Lister had just called him.

"**Actually, Arnold"** said Sam, looking very cross with the hologram but smiling at Holly's antics**, "they aren't stupid. By this stage they have a thriving civilisation going. There's no crime, no war, no disease and no hunger. They are a very advanced race."**

"So what happens there Sam?" asked Holly, trying to keep the conversation from skewing off to one side.

"**Well, it's very exciting! The Cat's welcome their long lost brother and because he introduces them to their god, Cloister, the king lets him marry his nine daughters and the Cat here becomes a Prince of the Cat people."**

"Owww! Yea! Yea! Yea!" said the Cat. "Working class kid makes good."

"But I'm not their god" said Lister looking at the Cat with disbelief.

"King of the Cat people?" said Rimmer looking disgusted and wiggling his little ferret nose. "That's like making Lister the King of India because he likes curries!"

"Smeg-off Bonehead" replied Lister.

"**Well, Dave; eventually you convince them that you aren't god but because you still stuck up for Frankenstein, therefore allowing their race to evolve, they make you their honorary god, how's that?"**

"And we sort out all that 'what colour the smeggin' hats should be' and 'sacred laws' crap?"

"**Yes, Dave. Then they ask if they can have Red Dwarf to use as a shrine to all of those who died during the Cat Wars and to the first group to leave Red Dwarf, the one's that crashed into the asteroid."**

"And do we?"

"**Yes, and in return they give you a smaller and much faster ship to which they transfer Holly and then Dave and Arnold take off."**

"What about me, Sam? What happens to me?" asked Kryten.

"A faster ship?" asked Rimmer. "Is it capable of faster than light travel?"

"**Yes it is, Arnold."**

"So do we get back to Earth?" asked Lister.

"**You do Dave, but not that way. If you did it would still take a long time to get there."**

"Then how" asked Holly.

"**Can I answer Kryten first?"** said Sam.

"Yea, sorry man" said Lister, apologising to his mechanical friend.

"**Well, the Cats tell of the 3 moons that orbit their planet and it seems one of them has an Earth-like atmosphere. Kryten asks if they thought it was possible plants would grow in the soil, they said that things already did. Then he asks if he may be permitted to settle there, they say yes and he gets to finally grow his garden."**

"Oh my" said Kryten, oil leaking form his eye sockets again.

"That's great Kryten, your own garden" said Lister, smiling like a chipmunk.

Even Rimmer was happy to hear this news and tried to stifle a tear in his own hologrammatic eye. But as usual, he tried to not show any weakness, well; any more weakness. "Yea, that's great Tin-Man, and then we won't have to put up with your smug-gitness any more."

"I'll miss you too Mr Rimmer sir" said Kryten.

"Hey! That's great Dr Frankenstein! Me and my wives and kids can come and visit you!" said the future Prince of the Cats.

Holly, Lister, Rimmer and Kryten all looked at the Cat trying to remember how many times they tried to tell him that Dr Frankenstein was the creator and not the monster. But they were so happy for him that they said nothing.

"Right, said Rimmer. "Now how do we, that is, Captain Curry-House and I, get back to Earth?"

"Maybe if you shut-up for five minutes, bonehead, he might tell us" said Lister.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

Kryten was still beside himself as he tried to comprehend the fact that he would, eventually, have a beautiful garden of his own; one he could create, nurture and watch grow. Then he and the Cat started talking about all the things that they would do, still being friends and visiting each other on as regular a basis; well, as much as the Cat's royal duties would allow, of course.

"Yes, yes; that's all very exciting" said Rimmer, trying really hard not to vomit. "But what about the human Gerbil and me, what happens to us, you said we get back to Earth, isn't that right Sam?"

"**Yes Arnold, you do get back to Earth"** said the dragon.

"But how the smeg is that possible?" Lister said. "You said the ship the Cats give us is faster than light, but it's still going to take more than a human life-span to get their, won't it?"

"**That's usually true Dave, but by the time you lot get to their planet, those brilliant Cats have discovered a way to bend space."**

"Bend space?" said the Cat, looking more confused than ever. "I thought space was made of a lot of nothing; how do you bend nothing?"

"It's a very long story Cat" said Holly. "But just think of a piece of paper. If you lay it out flat the points between two ends of it are a certain distance away from each other, right? It would take a really, really long time to get from one to the other."

The Cat just looked at the Red Dwarf computer like he was speaking a different language. "What are you talking about baldy; are you trying to tell me that space is made out of paper?"

Kryten interrupted and said "no Cat, Holly's just using the paper as an analogy."

"An anal what?"

"Just shut up and listen, Cat" said Lister.

Holly continued.

"Well you see, if you roll the paper up into a tube and put the edges together, then the points are closer, in fact right next to each other, right."

"Yea, so what" said Lister, who was also looking rather confused by this point in the conversation.

Sam took back its story and said **"so, you just dial in the place and time you want to go to, and the device in the ship somehow bends time and space and takes you there, simple."**

"Maybe for you it is, Sam" said the Cat. "Gee, you're beautiful and smart!"

"**Why thank you Cat"** Sam said as it batted its eye lashes at the love starved moggy.

"Another smegging time machine" said Rimmer, not impressed. "Remember what happened the last time we tried to use one of those things?"

"**This one is different Arnold"** said Sam. **"This one is a single trip unit only, one-way. Once you get to where you want to go it basically stops working."**

'Yes but what if it doesn't work" said the worst hypnotist in the history of everything. "What if we end up somewhere else?"

"**You won't Arnold; trust me."**

A heated discussion, debate… ah smeg it! It was an argument and everyone began yelling at everyone else at the same time. Holly wanted to discuss the theory of relativity and how it related to the space folding stuff (hey, don't ask me; I'm only the narrator! If I knew anything about relativity or folding space do you think I'd be here narrating in a fan fic!); Kryten wanted to know what seeds he should take with him to his moon; Rimmer couldn't make anyone listen to him and his theory about why Lister was the missing link so he just started calling everyone goits; and the Cat just wanted to know what colour suit he should wear to meet the King of the Cats

Sam just stood there and smiled.

"Enough" yelled Lister. "Shut up all of you!"

They all stopped arguing and just looked at Lister like he was a boil on a bum.

"Look, we fold space with machine the Cats put in the space ship they give us! I don't care how it works just as long as it works, OK?"

"They all nodded and apologised to Lister, all except Rimmer of course. He just sat back down, folded his arms and began to pout.

"Right, thank you. Now Sam, can you tell us what happens after we fold space, please?"

"**Why of course Dave, and I must say, that was very assertive of you"** said Sam.

"Ass what?" said Lister, wondering if he should get angry at the dragon.

"**A.S.S.E.R.T.I.V.E. Dave, assertive, it means you stood up for your self."**

"Right, OK; continue."

"**You go back to the day that the Dwarf got nuked, **in fact, you appear just beside the ship minutes before the, err… accident happened."

"It was an accident, Sam! Don't tell me you don't believe me either" said Rimmer, his pride well and truly shattered.

Sam bent low and whispered very quietly to the person who failed his officers exam so many times that it was written up in the book _'The Official History of the Space Corps: Volume 333 – The Ten Biggest Boneheads Ever To Enlist And The Accidents They Caused. 247th Edition, 2637 AD.'_ - **"Don't push it Arnold"** said Sam. **"Remember, I know what really happened."**

"So you were saying, Sam? Rimmer said, very quickly changing the subject.

"**So you appear next to red Dwarf, you lock on to Kristine Kochanski with the transporter and you beam her on board before smegging off back to Earth."**

Lister got such a shock he dropped his bazookoid on his foot and then jumped up and down in pain before saying "you're kidding?"

"**I don't kid, Dave. Well I do, but not about things like this."**

"Kristine Kochanski, THE Kristine Kochanski! We beam her off the Dwarf and we go back to Earth?"

"**Didn't I just say that?"** said Sam, laughing his weird laugh.

"Why can't we beam me off too Sam" said Rimmer, looking really cheesed off.

Sam looked at Rimmer sadly and said **"only one person can be beamed at a time Arnold and by the time Krissy is on board, you will only have seconds to jump into hyperspace and smeg off out of there or you will be affected by the radiation from the blast."**

"Besides bonehead" said Lister jumping up in the air and clicking his heels; "if we take you the ship won't get nuked, and none of this will have ever happened."

"And that's a bad thing, Dave?" asked Holly.

"No, err… ummm…" muttered Lister trying to save face.

"**Actually, Holly, it is"** said Sam**. "Stopping the Dwarf from being irradiated will cause too much of a glitch in the space-time continuum. It could be disastrous."**

"Oh, Ok Sam, seeing as you put it that way. I understand" said Holly, lying through his virtual teeth.

"Well I bloody don't! It's just not fair" said Rimmer, nostrils flaring and hologrammatic tears forming in his eyes.

Holly felt just the slightest twinge of compassion for the hologram so he took all his ferret bits off and left him looking, relatively, normal.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12:**

With Rimmer still fuming over not being allowed to save his own life and Lister grinning from ear to ear like a hungry Lion that's just about to pounce on an antelope; Kryten decided to be brave and asked "what happens next Sam?"

Sam said **"well, they fly back to Earth. Then Dave and Kristine get married and with the gold that the Cats gave you, you not only buy a farm on Fiji, you actually buy ALL of Fiji!"**

"What smeggin' gold?" said Lister, eyes widening like a 10 year old boy who's just found one of his big brother's girlie magazines.

"**Oh! Didn't I tell you about the gold?"**

Rimmer was adamant when he said "NO! You didn't you oversized…"

"**Do you really want to finish that sentence Arnold"** said Sam as a pair of small flames like you would get with a cigar lighter appeared from his nostrils.

"Umm, sorry… please; continue."

The flames ceased but smoke slowly poured from the dragon's nostrils as a reminder to Rimmer to watch his mouth.

"How much gold are we talking about here Sam?" asked Lister wondering just how rich was going to be.

"**A lot actually, more than you'll ever be able to spend Dave"** said Sam.

"Smeg, why did they do that? The ship they gave us would have been more than enough of a trade for Red Dwarf."

"**Call it a love offering, Dave. Besides, gold is a fairly common element on the Cat world and they were probably happy to get rid of it."**

Lister said "really?"

"**Yes to the first bit, no to the second; I suppose they just wanted to show you their appreciation."**

The Cat piped up and said "so chipmunk-cheeks and wiggle-hips get hitched and buy Fuschal; does goal-post head live with them, and what about Holly?"  
"It's called Fiji, Cat" said Lister; "not smeggin' Fuschal."

"Whatever; what happens to these two?" and he pointed to Holly and Rimmer.

"**Well, they both stay with Lister and Krissy for a while, then, after about six months Arnold says he's really, really bored with all of the lying around in the sun and drinking cocktails and he tells them he's decided to become a Space Adventurer and he asks Dave if he can have the ship."**

I do?" said Arnold. "That doesn't sound like something I would do?"

The others just stared at the guy who was such a coward that he used to start fights and then run and hide while Lister usually copped a beating for just simply knowing Rimmer.

"**Yes you do Arnold, but Holly decides that he wants to stay with Dave and Kris. So he builds the ship a new AI and then permanently transfers himself to his trolley."**

"Of course I would! Gordon Bennet; why the smeg would I want to be on a ship with Rimmer in charge."

"You're a goit Holly, you poor excuse for an abacus" said Rimmer angrily.

Holly responded by blowing Rimmer a very loud and very wet raspberry.

"So what happens to Rimmer?" said Lister.

"**Well, he makes himself a Captain, renames the ship the SS Rimmer and…"**

"Renames it?" asked Lister. "What was it called before?"

"**It was called 'Cloister's Pride!"**

"Wow" said the Cat. That's pretty cool."

"Yea, it is" said Lister, smiling.

"So what happens to me in space, Sam?" asked Rimmer. "Do I become a brave and heroic icon, the wet dream of damsels everywhere?"

"**Good question Arnold"** said Sam**. "I wish I could tell you. The next thing I see is you guys coming here and then my death."**

"Bummer" said Lister.

"**Not really, Dave. I've had a long time to prepare for it."**

"So that's it" asked Rimmer.

"**I'm afraid so Arnold."**

"So what happens now, Sam" asked Kryten.

"**Well first, the Cat and I have to have our date. Will a stroll around the cargo bay suffice Cat?"**

The Cat didn't answer, he just held out his arm and Sam took it gently, like it was made from porcelain. They strolled off and sauntered around the cargo bay for about half an hour then came back into the stasis room.

"And now?" asked Rimmer.

"**Now, you guys go back to Red Dwarf."** said Sam. **"I reverse the direction of the tractor beam and lift you up out of the crater and into space. Holly can fire up the engines and then you can be on your way."**

"But what about you Sam, why don't you come with us?" asked Lister; almost pleading for the dragon to accompany then on their travels.

"**Two reasons, Dave. One: Someone has to be here to lift the Dwarf back up into space and…"**

"But Sam, can't you put it on automatic or something" Kryten said.

"… **And two: I die here."**

"You smeggin' what?" said Lister flabbergasted.

"**I die here, I saw it happen right here."**

"How?" asked Holly.

"**Natural causes" said Sam, **smiling warmly at the way the guys were reacting to his news.

"Really?" asked Lister.

"**Yes, in fact, just seconds before the tractor beam machine blows up and destroys this entire moon."**

"What?" said Lister.

"What?" said Rimmer"

"What?" said Kryten."

"What?' said Holly.

The Cat didn't say anything, he just fainted.

The Cat woke scant seconds later and cried, eyes filling with tears, "I'm gunna miss you Sam!" he blubbered, then he ran over and gave Sam a big hug.

In fact, all of them went over and gave Sam a great bit group hug. Well, all of them who actually had arms did. Holly just bumped into the dragon a few times to show his affection.

"**You'd better go guys, it won't be long now" Sam said.**

So they said their goodbyes to the only creature that they had met in all the years that they were travelling in space that didn't either try to eat them, kill them, or hold them hostage.

Once back on the Dwarf the sombre mood continued as they waited for Sam to push them back into the inky blackness of the cosmos.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13:

While the crew of the Dwarf made their way back to the ship, Sam waited for what he thought was enough time for him to do what he needed to do before sending the guys back into space.

He moved back to his stasis pod, reached in and pulled out a light bee. He turned it on, threw it in the air and scant micro-seconds later, second technician Arnold Judas Rimmer was standing in front of him.

"Did you do it? Did you tell them, Sam?" said Rimmer, looking quite different to the Rimmer who had just left, dressed in camouflaged combat fatigues and sporting a goatee.

"**I did Arnold, they all seemed quite chuffed about their futures"** said the dragon.

"But you didn't tell them about me, or what was going to happen to the other me, did you?"

"**No Arnold, all the other you knows is that he takes the ship the Cat's gave you and flies off to become a spacer adventurer."**

"What a joke" said the Rimmer with no 'H' on his forehead thanks to a light bee remote he had acquired "Was I so arrogant and blind that I thought I could actually make a difference in this universe?"

"**I guess you were Arnold"** said Sam.

"So you didn't tell them about the black hole I flew into, destroying the ship?"

"**No Arnold."**

"And you didn't tell them that I came out of the white hole at the other end in the 24th century, ended up on Earth and joined the Space Corps again, never letting on that I was a hard-light hologram?"

"**No Arnold."**

"And you didn't tell them that despite flying around the cosmos for how-ever-many-years we did that I still only knew enough to make second tech again?"

"**No Arnold" said Sam, getting really impatient with its friend.**

"So did you tell them that the techie that screwed up and crashed the Red Dwarf III was me?"

"**No Arnold, I didn't."**

"So they don't know that I was the one the crew tied to the tractor beam machine, went down with the ship, let you out of stasis when my light bee eventually reset itself and then told you everything about what had ever happened to us on out travels?"

"**They haven't got a clue!"**

"And they believed all that pre-cog smeg?"

"**Yes Arnold, but it's not all smeg you know."**

"It isn't, which bit did you really see?"

"**I saw our deaths."**

"You mean you're death don't you Sam?"

"**I'm afraid I'm don't, Arnold"** said Sam, as it began to walk to the tractor beam room.

Rimmer followed him and as Sam began to lift the Red Dwarf out of the crater Rimmer said "But I don't want to die, Sam. I'm not smegging ready!"

Up in Red Dwarf Holly told them they were go to start the engines and leave. They all took one last look at the moon and then turned the vid screen off and departed, knowing they at least had a future to fly off into.

Back on the moon, Sam turned to Rimmer and just before the whole thing exploded like a huge pimple he said **"I know you don't want to die Arnold, neither do I. But let's face it; you really died when the first Red Dwarf got nuked, didn't you?"**

Rimmer smiled, clicked his fingers and pointed at Sam.

"Good point."

THE END

If anyone has any comments on my writing, if they can suggest any way I can improve it in any way, please let me know.

IF you like the story please let me know.

God Bless Ya †


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